Warning...this is a wordy post!
Maddie's first night away from home was not one we had planned...or one we will soon forget! When I picked up Maddie from daycare on Thursday, December 23rd Vickie told me she had been crabby for most of the afternoon and hadn't napped at all (the no napping isn't totally unusual for her), but she had just had a big poop so she thought maybe she had a tummy ache and would feel better now. Fast forward to Friday morning...Maddie got up about 6:30, I nursed her and when I pulled her leg back to change her diaper she cried, I didn't think much of it and we went downstairs to play. I noticed when I put her in the exersaucer she wouldn't stand on her right leg, but she was happy and playing. Cary took her out a little while later and when he tried to stand her up she wouldn't put any weight on her right leg, he took her pants off and noticed her knee was swollen and hot to the touch. Being that it was Christmas Eve our pediatrician wasn't open so I called the on-call doctor (who thankfully happened to be our ped) and she said...I want you to take her directly to the ER at Children's hospital. Of course that's when the tears started for me, I was thinking she had bounced a little too hard in the exersaucer and hurt her knee...not go directly to the hospital. We quickly packed up and dropped G off with Dan. After stopping at the WRONG children's hospital, we finally found where we were supposed to be about 9:45am. We started off talking with the ER doc who wanted to do an xray of her knee...the xray came back and they thought she might have a fracture in her knee.
Because 6 month old babies don't just fracture their legs, we had a visit from Social Services who were ready to launch a full investigation (maybe we were lucky it was Christmas Eve), I totally understand that is protocol, but when you are on the other side of the questioning it really sucks! Not to mention we knew that neither Cary or I hurt our precious Maddie...and both of us knew Vickie would never hurt her so who did? This also required Maddie to go back in and have xrays taken of all of the bones in her body to make sure there were no other fractures. So while Cary helped the nurses strap Maddie down for more xrays I stood in the hall and cried (strong mom right? and I'm not normally a crier). We waited and waited and Maddie was as good as could be and they finally came back and said they wanted to do an MRI...they were pretty sure there wasn't a fracture, instead they thought it was either a bone infection(6- 8 weeks of IV antibiotics to treat) or fluid on her knee (7 - 10 days of IV antibiotics to treat). The good news it meant nobody had hurt our precious princess. While we waited for Maddie's MRI they had to take blood...poor baby girl they stuck her 6 times before they finally got the minimum amount of blood they could have and to get her IV in, not to mention she couldn't go in for her MRI until 6 hours from her last feeding.
At that point we knew we would be staying overnight...so we were finally admitted and brought to our room. At 4:00 we brought her down for her MRI...in order to keep her still during the procedure they had to put her to sleep...Cary held her while they gave her gas and she fell asleep in his arms. We waiting for what seemed like FOREVER and they came out to tell us it was fluid on her knee and she would be going directly up to the OR to drain the fluid and clean our her knee. We walked from the MRI to the OR with our sleeping baby...it was awful to see her asleep with a tube down her throat and her eyes taped shut. Being that it was after 5pm and Christmas Eve there was literally nobody around so Cary and I paced the waiting room outside the OR for what seemed like FOREVER! At 7:15 they finally came out to tell us it there was fluid on the knee and everything had gone well. We got to go back and see her and I held and nursed her while she woke up. It is awful to see your child waking up from anestesia, but we were so thankful it wasn't something more serious. Finally about 7:45 we got to bring her back to our room. It certainly wasn't the Christmas Eve we were planning (I thought my biggest concern of the day was going to be which dress should Maddie wear to church...boy was I wrong!) Cary stayed with until bedtime and then he went home to be with Gavin...because Gavin was expecting a visit from Santa, and we didn't want to disappoint! We were surprised to find out Santa makes visits to the hospital too...and even brought a present for Gavin. Gavin and Cary came to visit the next morning and Gavin was very excited to help Maddie open her presents. We ended up staying in the hospital until Monday so they could keep her on IV antibiotics and culture the fluid from her knee to make sure we were treating with the right antibiotics. I can't even imagine how people entertain themselves for weeks or months in the hospital, we were going a little batty after 3 days...but we did enjoy 24 hours of a Christmas Story!
Playing peek a boo over the crib rail
Cary stayed Saturday night and the nurses were impressed by how he had her swaddled!
You can see from the pictures below Maddie was quite a trooper throughout this whole thing...still smiling and cute as can be!
The "cast" on her arm was to keep her from pulling her IV out! Her leg cast didn't stop her from moving about and getting what she wanted.
Still stylin even in a hospital gown
On Monday we were released and super happy to get home! After 2 more weeks of oral antibiotics Maddie seemed to have beaten this infection! We are SO lucky we called and went in when we did or we would have been looking at a much longer stay in the hospital! We have a 10 day, 4 week, 8 week and 6 month follow up with the surgeon and after that they don't think she will have any other long term effects. While we will never know how or where she got this bacteria (which ended up being Kingella Kingelli or Septic Arthritis), it is something that's common and probably affected her because she had recently had croup and her immune system was weakened.
We can look back and be so thankful it wasn't something more serious, just seeing the other kids at Children's makes us appreciate how lucky we are to have 2 healthy kids, thankful to be in the hands of wonderful doctors, thankful for the support system we have...family, friends, neighbors who all helped out, and also thankful to have good insurance now that the stay finally has a price tag of $24,000! Thanks Maddie for getting this in 2010 when we had already met our out of pocket max! We were also reassured what a strong little girl we have...I'm pretty sure I cried in the hospital more than she did!
If you are still reading...I can assure you Maddie's first night away from home isn't one we will soon forget, and we hope next Christmas isn't nearly as eventful!
We took him to the Maplewood mall and rode the train around the mall. He LOVED it!
We also played on the rides...G doesn't know that they actually move if you put money in them, but he was happy enough crawling around in all of them!
Then we went to Rob and Peg's to celebrate Christmas and his birthday!
G must have been very good this year...once again he got lots of presents.
like a Buzz Lightyear costume
we also had Toy Story cupcakes, complete with 3 candles. Gavin LOVES candles
The nice thing about having kids exactly 2.5 years apart is we can do their check ups together. Dr. Plotnik thought both kids looked healthy as can be. I had told G he wouldn't be getting any shots this year, but was wrong. Poor guy...3 days later he told me his arm still hurt and Dr. Plotnik did it to him :(
